


The Glory of The Sky

by Echo (Lyrecho)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Iris-centric, an end to ten years of darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8804953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Echo
Summary: "Thunder crashed and storms of blinding rain poured down from the heavens. Iris, rainbow-clad, gathered the heavens and made whole the clouds, refilling them with rain and light."
Iris watches as the first sunrise in a decade breaks through the night that seemed eternal, and hopes; grieves. |Tumblr| |Twitter|





	

**Author's Note:**

> iris centric because why not. I heart me some iris. iris trash #1
> 
> I'll be going into more detail on her gang of ass kicking ladies once I get to that point of 'we're a broken people,' but this idea just hit me and I had to write it. I don't know.
> 
> The ending is left deliberately ambiguous. Interpret it as you will.
> 
> Title and summary from various passages on the Greek goddess Iris.

"I cannot _believe_ you," Iris muttered into her phone, Cor silent on the other end. "How could you _not_ tell me that he was back?"

"I only just found out myself, Iris," Cor said when she let the question hang, seeking an answer. "Ignis called me only an hour ago."

Iris paused, her purposeful steps towards the center of Lestallum where her people waited for her to hand out the schedule and roster for the next week slowing to a stop - something in Cor's voice ticked against a dark spot in her mind.

"Cor," she said, voice shaking, a fear she thought she'd managed to get over _years_ earlier brewing within her. "Were are you? Where are _they_? Aren't you together?"

Her voice was shrill by the end of this explanation, and crackling with static, Cor sighed over the line. "I'm afraid not," he said. "None of them are picking up their phones anymore, and Ignis said...they're heading towards the Crown City, Iris."

She swallowed, felt tears blur her vision. " _No,_ " she whispered. "No, Gladio wouldn't - not without - "

"Without saying goodbye?" Cor said, his voice heartbreakingly gentle. "Maybe he doesn't want to jinx it, Iris. Your brothers are strong. It's bad form for you to assume the worst."

But Iris merely shook her head, even knowing that Cor wouldn't be able to see the movement - if she opened her mouth, she would cry. Scream.

Those first few days, when the world went dark - they'd been terrifying. She'd called and called Gladio; called Prompto, Ignis and Noct - no-one had answered, and the only thing keeping her together at that point had been the fact that with Cor and Monica gone to do whatever it was that the Crownguard had been up to, only she was available to protect Talcott should the daemons that she could hear howling and scratching outside in the night that never ended decide to finally break through the walls and attack them. He had _needed_ her.

Eventually, Gladdy had turned up there, to collect them - take them to Lestallum, where lights still shone brightly. _You'll be safe there,_ he'd told her, as she cried over what he had said of Noct's fate, and how the reason they'd taken so long to get to her - taken so long to get back in cell range - was that they'd moved the crystal to Angelgard, to better protect Noct from the hordes of daemons when it became clear that his homecoming was going to be a long time away.

And she had been. She'd been very safe there, and very alone, with only Talcott by her side until he, too, grew up enough to think that fighting daemons was _smart_ , and had at Ignis' request moved himself away to Hammerhead, to help Cindy out and act as a courier when needed. It had taken Iris _months_ to forgive Ignis for that - she wasn't his mother and she wasn't his sister, far from it, but for four years of nothing but darkness and danger and death she had _raised_ Talcott and the idea of him out there, alone, nothing but the dim light of two headlamps between him and the daemons that crowded the road, prowling for any humans foolish enough to walk along them _terrified_ her.

And that was when she'd decided not to simply await for her family to come home to her, either alive and whole, or as names on the cold hunter's tags everyone still alive had taken to wearing since the sky went black and _stayed_ that way, wanting to leave some mark of themselves on the world, proof that they had existed - when she'd called up Cor and asked for any of the Crownsguard he could spare, and to her surprise many of the women that had once worked in the powerplant had offered - near begged, really - to come with her, fight with her; with so many refugees from all over Eos flooding into Lestallum over the past years, there was almost enough people to have a constant rotating roster of hundreds of people (men and women alike) working around the clock with no-one ever having to pull a double-shift; these women had felt useless on the days they weren't rostered at the plant, the needed to do _something_ , and killing daemons had seemed as good a plan as any.

And that was how it had started - the humble, desperate beginnings of her, the brave, strong leader they called _Iris the Daemon Slayer_.

What a _joke_. If all those that idolised her could see her now, on the verge of a breakdown as she realised that her family was going to _die_ \- 

All those years earlier, when Gladdy and the others had started to hunt more frequently and visit Lestallum less often, her eldest and only blood brother had reassured her that he'd always be coming back - _so long as I'm around to say goodbye to you,_ he'd said, _then you don't have to worry about me going anywhere - at least not until I've given you a chance to kick my ass for making you worry._

He hadn't said goodbye. _He hadn't said goodbye_ , not this time.

"Thank you, Cor," she said automatically, running on autopilot, voice stiff and robotic even to her own numb ears as she pressed 'end call.' Cor might have said something after. She didn't know. 

She didn't care.

Right there, in the middle of the street, not caring who saw her or that she had responsibilities - Iris sank to her knees, and cried. Cried like she hadn't cried in almost a decade, only this time there wasn't any Gladdy to pull her up, give her a hug, and reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

"Lady Iris?" The voice was young, and hesitant. "Uh, Miss Daemon Slayer? Ma'am?"

Sniffling, she looked up to see a boy, a child, seemingly a few years younger than Talcott had been when this whole horrible nightmare started - one of the few children born since the sun had died, looking nervous as he fidgeted over her, worry tugging at his brow.

Though she was wrecked, both inside and out, her fragile heart worn thin as delicate glass over the years hovering just on the edge of breaking, a few ironfast truths of the girl known as Iris Amicitia still remained - one, protect those who need you; this child saw her as strong, a hero - and she wouldn't allow whatever security he could take from her to be stolen away because of her own selfish grief.

So, "what is is?" she smiled, even though it hurt, and shifted into a crouch, raising one hand to brush against his cheek. "You're not lost, are you?"

He shook his head, _no_. "'M from the orphanage," he said, and pointed down the street in the direction Iris knew vaguely was the direction that said building lay. "Me and the other kids...we was getting kind of worried." His face showed pale fear, and though there was a part of her - the part that was a Crown City girl and tutored at times by Ignis - that distractedly wanted to lead the boy aside by the hand and gently correct his grammar; and urge that rose even in the most inoportune times, she shook it off to comfort him.

"Worried?" she asked. "About what?"

"The sky, miss," he said. "It's changing."

Iris _stilled,_ whirling to see where the boy pointed, just beyond the horizon line.

Streaks of yellow and pink and red breaking through the black, a sight she hadn't seen in ten years, and Iris _choked_ , grief and wonder combining within her as she drank in the sight of the world's first dawn in over a decade.

"What is it?" The boy said, frightened, and Iris glanced down to see him reach for her hand. She linked her fingers with his, and smiled as she tugged him in the direction of the orphanage - if he was scared than surely the other children must be, too - feeling him relax in her grip, reassured by the fact that she wasn't scared. "Is it something bad?"

"Not at all," Iris said, and hoped that the colours and light now staining the sky, slowly breaking down the dark and drawing wondering people out of homes to gape up at the sky, crying and screaming excitement and joy, were a sign, an omen of hope - that her brothers _weren't_ gone from her, that they had succeeded and would be coming back to her soon. "It's the dawn."

Wide-eyed, the boy mouthed her words, staring up at the sunrise with fresh eyes, gaze full of awe and wonder. Of course - as young as he was, this must be the first sunlight he had ever seen, the golden day a mere myth that the adults liked to reminisce and dream and wax poetic about.

"It's _real_?" He exclaimed, happiness lighting up his face.

"As real as you or I," Iris promised, just as he pulled his hand from hers to run ahead those last few steps to the orphanage, calling out excitedly for his friends to _come out and see the dawn! It's good, I swear!_

She slowed to a stop as a swarm of children poured out of the doors - young ones, the same age as the boy and some even younger - but some older, just old enough to remember daylight themselves, hovering on the cusp of their teenage years - and as they stared at the pink that lined the horizon they burst into tears.

"It was warm," one whispered hoarsely to a curious girl that had tugged on their skirt to ask why they were crying, and upon recieving an explanation, just what, exactly, the sun was like. "I remember that - it was _warm_."

Iris choked up a little, her throat aching from how many times this morning alone she had had to force down tears. Turning from the children as they cheered when the first rays of the day painted golden streams on their faces as the sun broke through clouds to clearer sky, a shade of blue Iris had almost forgotten, not wanting to take their moment away from them - Iris tilted her head down, and pulled out her phone once more.

 _One Missed Call,_ her screen read, and upon seeing the caller ID - 

She smiled.


End file.
